When I was very young, one day Didima called me and Neru Dada, and gave us some money to buy a record player. We couldn’t imagine such a thing could happen. We used to have one HMV dealer at Kanpur. His shop was located at Mall Road. There was only one model was available. It did not take us much time to buy the record player. We paid the amount. Some money still remained. We thought of buying a few records. We had 2 LP’s; Shyama and Shapmochan. We never heard them before. Rabindranath’s photo on the cover made us to buy the record. Perhps we wanted to impress Didima. Still some money remained. We bought one 78 rpm, a Mukesh bhajan. On the one side was Pitu matu sahayak swami sakha and on the other Sur ki gati main kya janoo. We came home. People at home were astonished looking at our choices. I still don’t know why we chose those records. But I can’t tell you how many times I heard those songs. It was our favourite past time. I always wanted to sing like Mukesh. Perhaps I thought that I sang Mukesh songs the best. Some of my favourite Mukesh songs
Aansoo bhari hai yeh jivan ki rahein, Parwarish
Bhoole se mohabbat kar baitha, Dil hi to hai
Bhuli hui yaado, Sanjog
Chal ri sajni ab kya soche, Bambai ka babu
Hum chal rahe the, Duniya na mane
Hum tujhse mohabbat karke sam rote bhi rahe hanste bhi rahe, Awaara
Jaoon kahan bataye dil, Choti behen
Jhoomti chali hawa, Sangeet samrat Tansen
Mere tute huye dil se, Chalia
Mujhe tumse kuch bhi na chahiye, Kanhaiya
Sajanwa bairi hog aye hamaar, Teesri kasam
Yeh mera deewanapan hai, Yahudi
Suhana safar aur ye mausam haseen, Madhumati
Wo subah kabhi to aayegi, Phir subah hogi
Jiyenge magar muskura na sakennge, non-film